Technology A speech scientist reveals why the viral 'laurel' versus 'yanny' argument has only one right answer

01:42 17 may 2018

01:42 17 may 2018 Source:
businessinsider.com

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Some hear a deep rich voice saying " Laurel ." Others hear a tinny voice delivering " Yanny ." We asked some scientists to weigh in on this viral ear-worm. Yes, friends: there may actually be a right answer here.

“ I did not create Yanny vs . Laurel ,” she said. “ I don’t know how this was made.” “ I have no idea why some listeners attend more to the lower frequency range while others attend more to the higher frequency range,” she added.

The internet is aflame about whether a robotic-sounding recording says "yanny" or "laurel."

Speech scientists say there's a simple reason for the audio trickery that has to do with the way our brains learn to quickly decipher vowels and words.

The recording seems to be a slightly altered version of vocabulary.com's pronunciation aide for the word laurel. (Sorry, team yanny.)

Yanny or laurel?

The internet exploded in argument this week as people debated which of those words a robot was saying in this recording, posted by YouTube vlog-er Chloe Feldman:

What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel pic.twitter.com/jvHhCbMc8I

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The White House on Thursday poked fun at President Trump's infamous "covfefe" tweet in a video weighing in on a viral internet debate. The video asked several White House staffers to weigh in on an audio clip that has divided the internet. The audio went viral earlier this week, with some saying they hear "Laurel" in the clip and others saying they hear "Yanny." The video asked several White House staffers to weigh in on an audio clip that has divided the internet. The audio went viral earlier this week, with some saying they hear "Laurel" in the clip and others saying they hear "Yanny.

Share Why you hear “ Laurel ” or “ Yanny ” in that viral audio clip, explained. What “ Yanny ” and “ Laurel ” have in common. This is a spectrogram (a visual representation of those frequencies) of the “ Laurel versus Yanny ” meme.

Hardik Kothare, who works in the speech neuroscience lab at UCSF was quick to weigh in with his assessment of the sound. To his ear, this was definitely a recording of the word laurel.

If you're still on team yanny, take a listen to the original recording from Vocabulary.com, where it's the pronunciation key for just one word: laurel. (Apologies, yanny fans.)

The sound was recorded by a professional opera singer who was one of the original cast members in the Broadway musical Cats, according to Wired. The dictionary site hasn't revealed the man's identity, but said he was one of several trained singers enlisted to record hundreds of thousands of pronunciations, based on the rules of the international phonetic alphabet.

Meet the voice behind the viral 'Yanny' vs 'Laurel' debate that has split the internet - and the Broadway actor reveals which word he actually recorded

Jay Aubrey Jones , 64, has been revealed as the viral voice recording. The New Jersey native is an actor and singer who was trained in pronunciation. He recorded the word in 2007 for Vocabulary.com.The voice behind the viral 'yanny' vs 'laurel' sensation has been revealed to be a Broadway actor and singer.

But why do people hear name versus the other? We listen with our brains, and our brains tend to By isolating each track, it's clear listeners can hear both " Yanny " and " Laurel ." Webster, the more pragmatic forensic scientist , asserted that it was far more likely that animals had run off with her hand.

And I think that’s why the viral audio clip of a robot some people hear saying “ Yanny ” and other people hear saying “ Laurel ” is so provocative. Perceptual tricks like this (“the dress” is another recent one ) reveal that our perceptions are not the The “ Yanny ” versus “ Laurel ” and dress debates are silly.

Kothare suggested that the recording was likely "cleverly synthesized" to trick our brain's powers of speech detection. He said there's a simple, logical reason why some folks who listen to the viral recording hear yanny while others pick up laurel.

"The human brain is trained to perceive and interpret speech on the fly in a remarkable way," Kothare said Tuesday on Twitter.

Our ears learn at a young age to pick up clues about the vowels people are spitting out by focusing on frequencies at which certain sounds tend to resonate. The frequencies for each sound are a little different from person to person and language to language. And if you mess with the frequencies in a recording, you can change what people hear — it's similar to the way that our eyes can be tricked by an optical illusion.

Notice the white patch or jump after the /æ/ vowel? That may be perceived as the lack of a vowel sound or a consonant interspersed between the vowels. Hence the /n/ in Yanny. (14/n) pic.twitter.com/knbSRxYzLG

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Earlier this week, an audio clip of a robot appearing to say either " Yanny " or " Laurel " went viral , with people evenly "The same thing can happen with speech sounds." Enter: Yanny and Laurel . Why It Pays to Ask an Expert. You Asked, Our Expert Answers . Ask the Men's Health Expert - Skin Cancer.

These documents promised people of all colors that they had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but America had not made good on this promise. 1 educator answer . What is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s claim in his " I Have a Dream" speech ?

— Hardik Kothare (@hardikkothare) May 16, 2018

The New York Times tried this out today and created its own yanny-versus-laurel audio switching tool.

It turns out that our brains can shift pretty easily between hearing yanni and laurel, just based on how low or high the frequency of the recording gets. Couple this with all the cultural and linguistic ways we've been trained to hear certain vowels, and you've got a perfect recipe for a little audio illusion.

"Speech perception and production depends heavily on an internal map of speech sounds," Kothare said. "You learn this map while learning to speak as a toddler, and also while hearing others speak on a day-to-day basis."

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The show's 36th winner also opened up about making history after the season nearly ended in an unprecedented tie.The 33-year-old furniture company owner was crowned the winner of Survivor: Ghost Island on Wednesday night by one castaway and one castaway only: his "sister" on the island, Laurel.

Similar from the Web

Some hear a deep rich voice saying " Laurel ." Others hear a tinny voice delivering " Yanny ." We asked some scientists to weigh in on this viral ear-worm. Yes, friends: there may actually be a right answer here.

Laurel or Yanny ? How an Audio Clip Divided the Internet - www.nytimes.com

“ I did not create Yanny vs . Laurel ,” she said. “ I don’t know how this was made.” “ I have no idea why some listeners attend more to the lower frequency range while others attend more to the higher frequency range,” she added.

Share Why you hear “ Laurel ” or “ Yanny ” in that viral audio clip, explained. What “ Yanny ” and “ Laurel ” have in common. This is a spectrogram (a visual representation of those frequencies) of the “ Laurel versus Yanny ” meme.

But why do people hear name versus the other? We listen with our brains, and our brains tend to By isolating each track, it's clear listeners can hear both " Yanny " and " Laurel ." Webster, the more pragmatic forensic scientist , asserted that it was far more likely that animals had run off with her hand.

And I think that’s why the viral audio clip of a robot some people hear saying “ Yanny ” and other people hear saying “ Laurel ” is so provocative. Perceptual tricks like this (“the dress” is another recent one ) reveal that our perceptions are not the The “ Yanny ” versus “ Laurel ” and dress debates are silly.

Yanny or Laurel : What Experts Have to Say About the Audio Debate - www.menshealth.com

Earlier this week, an audio clip of a robot appearing to say either " Yanny " or " Laurel " went viral , with people evenly "The same thing can happen with speech sounds." Enter: Yanny and Laurel . Why It Pays to Ask an Expert. You Asked, Our Expert Answers . Ask the Men's Health Expert - Skin Cancer.

What are the main three arguments stated in Dr. King's " I Have " - www.enotes.com

These documents promised people of all colors that they had the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, but America had not made good on this promise. 1 educator answer . What is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s claim in his " I Have a Dream" speech ?

Yanny or Laurel ? Science explains why you hear different things in viral clip. As with ‘The Dress’, there’s no ‘ right ’ answer : people have noticed that if you change the pitch, or adjust the bass on the clip, the same person can hear the two different sounds.

' Yanny ' or ' Laurel '? Why Your Brain Hears One or the Other in This - www.livescience.com

"So unless this speaker had two completely separate tongues, this ambiguous speech has been carefully crafted to fool the ears. Why Laurel or Yanny ? As for what makes a person sway one way or the other after listening to this audio clip, that's anyone's guess for now.

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